Blade Star
by sauropoda
Summary: "I couldn't quit after she questioned my heart, y'know? . . . I don't know where I'd be if it weren't for her." (Rod/Lucine)


The hammer strikes. Anvil ringing, sparks flying. (Sparks that look like stars. Like fireflies. Like the glimmer in her eyes.) Sweat dripping from his brow, muscles aching. The sharp smell of heat and iron all around.

It's like a sauna. Or a furnace. Hell, it's a volcano. The sun is straight overhead, a ripe, blinding blaze of yellow. And the damn river is just a few feet away, flowing thick and lazy. Winding its way through green pastures and damp forests. Cattails swaying in soft breezes. Rocks slick with algae.

The hammer strikes again. His left shoulder tightens. Old injury. Old scar. Muscle all weak and shredded, worn straight down the bone.

He should wear a sling. Take it slow. Take a breather.

Drop everything and throw himself head-first into the water because this damn sun. Searing straight down on him. The heat of a fresh sunburn has settled across his cheeks.

He should do a hundred different things. Eat some lunch. Take a nap. Stretch a little. But he won't.

The pounding of metal echoes like a heartbeat across the little cove.

Just get it done, that's what he tells himself over and over again, the words circling over and over like a prayer. This piece of junk that's been worming around in his head, like the bar of a song that he can't stop humming. He's got no plan, but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's nothing fancy this time. Maybe it's back to basics, just a regular old weapon. ("That's what you always say," he hears her say, and her voice sings like bright polished copper.) Just a sword. Flashing steel. Clean blood groove, smooth edges, an elegant curve to it. (He can still feel his hand resting on the swell of her hip, if he closes his eyes. Soft and gentle.)

How long has it been since he made something simple? No frills, no gimmicks. Easy as breathing.

Easy as breathing when you're surrounded by smoke and fire and burning, twisted iron, all filling up your lungs 'til you choke.

Nothing comes easy anymore.

Sometimes it feels like a hole in his gut, black and bleeding out. The fear. When it's just him and Johnny Boy and the clank-clatter-clank of wrought iron, the hiss of warm steel dunked in water. That's when it settles in like a thick, rolling fog: the realization that he hasn't gone anywhere. Hasn't done a damn thing. Hasn't got a weapon worth showing, a scar worth bragging about.

"Just get it done," he mutters, and the words come tight and clipped through gritted teeth. Not that he even knows what "it" is anymore. A strong blade and a sturdy hilt and that's it, that's all. Nothing else to it. No art, no soul, no vision. Might as well be a skewer for tonight's dinner.

("You make it look so simple," she said to him once. Her back was to the forge, and the fire's glow wrapped around her like a lover.

He had just given her a dagger. Stiletto blade, nothing more than a fine needle-point on a black hilt. A bee's stinger. But she had asked for one, and she was quick and fierce with the smallest of knives. Deadly, even. Kept them strapped to her thigh, hidden under a pile of skirts.

He watched her run her fingers across the hilt, tracing the outline of the monogram. A stylized "L" with a long-stemmed lily twined delicately around it. Her favorite flower.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, and the fire behind her darkened her face, but he knew her eyes were sparkling. The flash of her smile cut through the shadow. "Wanna try it out now?"

She barely reached his shoulder, and she could knock him on his back in under a minute. His little spitfire.

She made it look so simple.)

His thoughts bend with the hot metal, flaring hot-white and fading to wisps of smoke in the wind.

He loves wind. Silver Breeze. Golden Gale. Tornadoes, hurricanes, rushes of air blowing the dust and debris from the earth. Cleansing, that's what they are. A new start.

Exactly what he needs now.

He doesn't know what to call this one. A half-hearted attempt at a blade, and he's been fiddling with it for hours. Sweat and blood but no focus. Not that he has anything else to focus on. The rush of the river, Johnny Boy's snoring. (She snored sometimes. A quiet little wheeze now and again, like a fly buzzing around the room. The first time she spent the night with him, he stayed up watching her chest rise and fall, listening to the whisper of her breathing.)

This sword is no gale. A pitiful little huff of air. A wistful sigh.

("Just finish it, and if it's awful, who cares? It'll be done. Gone. Poof, like the wind." She waved a hand in front of her face, punctuating her words. "Then you can start again."

She was perched on the edge of the workbench, legs swinging back and forth, a few inches off the ground. The tap-tap-tap of her heel hitting the bench's leg was the only sound in the shop. He had his head down, leaning over another set of sketches. Brow furrowed. Jaw grinding in tight, worried circles.

"Stop thinking so much," she huffed after a moment, hopping up from the bench. "You look awful when you brood like that."

"Awful?" He glanced up, raising an eyebrow. "Strong words, lady."

"Accurate, though." She stood behind him now, looking over his shoulder at the sketches. Another battleaxe design. One that he dreamed up during breakfast the other morning, scribbled out over a bowl of lukewarm porridge. Light and thin, with a brass haft cap. Not the sort of thing he'd use himself, but maybe he'd be able to sell it later on, if he could just get the damn thing made.

Her hands settled on his shoulders, working at the knotted, weary muscles. "Just finish it, Rod. Stop doubting yourself.")

The same words swarm at him now. Gnats in his eyes, fleas on his skin. Biting and crawling and itching. _Just finish it just finish it just finish it just finish it stop doubting stop thinking stop -_

The hammer falls again. Ringing metal joins the hum of insects, the trill of birds. Blood rushing in his veins, heart pounding in his chest. Aching.

He has never missed her more.


End file.
